


Lightning

by animasevera



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, Gen, shortfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:44:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animasevera/pseuds/animasevera
Summary: Under the Qun, your name has a meaning. Asaaranda's has its own. Part of a series.





	

She watches the clouds roll in from the Coast, thick and dark and pregnant with the storms for which the region was named. The tide rolls in at her feet, dragging a layer of beach back with it. The breeze turns into a mild gale that carries salty air through her hair and horns. She draws it deep into her belly, where it stirs and churns like the black nimbus above.   
  
A violet flicker starts in the heart of the storm, bolts jumping frenetically from cloud to cloud. She gazes at it until everything else in her mind is lost in the roiling stormshadows. Her feet sink into the wet sand as she meanders across the shoreline, leaving a trail that was quickly washed away as the waves broke once more. Seafoam splashes across her ankles, bringing with it a brisk chill that awakens every sense.   
  
A distant rumble starts seconds later, growing louder as the dark clouds continue their ponderous procession. She draws in another breath of the stormwinds, imagining the raw natural power coursing down from the sky, striking her, and filling every nerve with hot electric energy. It comes out in a deep, rumbling sigh - her own thunder.   
  
A bolt spikes down from the clouds and strikes the water, fortunately at a safe distance away. She knows she must respect this power, so she takes several steps back out of the tide's reach, sinking her toes in the soft sand. Her posture is still just as straight as before, as if waiting to be struck herself.   
  
But she is the one who strikes.   
  
The static begins to gather in her palm. She calls up the feeling and memory of electricity, the way it tingles and burns under her skin, arcs between her fingertips. The Fade answers her command, cracking and twisting through material reality until a spark shoots from a finger, then another. It grows into jumping, sizzling arcs that grow thicker, brighter, more rapid, until she holds a churning ball of light in her hand, which she breaks in two with the spreading of her arms. A hot current snaps across the gap, dancing and writhing like a glowing serpent.   
  
Her gaze flicks skyward as she holds the surge, as if waiting for a cue.   
  
It comes in a blinding flash that nearly makes her lose control of her magic. The deafening crash comes at the same time, rocking her senses to the core. Just as quickly as it comes, it's gone, but she still see stars, and her ears are still ringing. She lets her own arc shoot out into the charged air, as if in reply to the one sent down from above. It scatters into a net of arcs overhead, filling the cloud with a magical light show as it excites the ether into white-hot plasma.   
  
She has only a few seconds to gaze at the fireworks, and must do so while fleeing for drier ground. The charge comes crashing back down to earth in the spot where she once stood, sending her lunging down to shield her face from the light and her ears from the sound. The shockwave traveling through the air still knocks the wind out of her and echoes raw power in her bones. She puffs out a shuddering sigh from her lips, lifting her head and lightly shaking the daze out as pins and needles crawl down her spine and wash all other sensations out. The last of it comes out in a heady giggle before she rolls over onto her back, arm flailing out and flopping into the dry sad. Her ears start popping, their ringing rising in volume. Her eyes fix straight upward at the sky as sunlight peeks through the cracks where the cloud once was, albeit briefly before being swallowed up by another one that rolls into the same space. Her chest rises and falls with every purring, satisfied breath.   
  
The rain starts coming down in a full pour from the outset, not even giving a warning drizzle. As much as she enjoys the lightning and thunder, Asaaranda is not so fond of being soaking wet. The instant she can move her limbs, she springs to her feet and starts heading back in the direction of camp.   
  
When she returns later with the others, Varric literally stumbles across a strange, gnarled mass of sand. Solas explains it as the result of lightning striking sand with a heat so intense it melted the sand into crude glass. The dwarf stares over at the Qunari, eyebrows peaked in awe and a bit of fear as he contemplates how much power she really holds. Solas merely smiles, naming the phenomenon with the word "fulgurite" derived from Tevene. Dorian circles the patch of melted sand, his eyes fixed on it in wonder. He notes having heard of it, but never having seen it in the flesh before now. Whistling with mild amazement, Varric suggests taking a piece of it back with them to prove the event. The others agree, and they all break off several pieces.   
  
Asa grabs the largest chunks, not just as proof of the event itself, but as proof that she had been its cause. Less for their sake than her own, when she needed to be reminded of her own capabilities. Before she joins the others, she takes one last, long gaze across the violent waves as thunder rumbles in the distance and bolts arc their course to the water.   
  
_The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless._ That's how the Qunari proverb has always gone. Asa flares her nostrils with a snort at the thought. 

_Tell it to the storms._   
  
  



End file.
